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Friday, 1 November 2013

Deadpool Kills Deadpool by Cullen Bunn and Salva Aspin Review

Once Deadpool realised that he couldn’t die because of something called continuity, he grew despondent until he realised that if he killed every version of every character in continuity, he would be free – that led to Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. But when that didn’t work, he tried to kill the classic archetypes of every character, leading to Deadpool jumping from one literary novel to another in Deadpool Killustrated. And when that didn’t work, he realised he, Deadpool, was the creator of everything and the only way he could find peace was if he killed himself – leading us to the final instalment in the Deadpool Killology, Deadpool Kills Deadpool!

Given how abstract the Killology has been, I was a bit disappointed with how DKD turned out; first Deadpool, once again breaking the fourth wall, acknowledges a thing as Marvel continuity in its comics, even that he is a comics character existing in comic books, and attempts a surreal form of seppuku, and then he goes even further, going into books like Huck Finn, Moby Dick and Little Women to kill classic characters whom Marvel’s characters were loosely based upon. For DKD, I expected something truly weird – some really out-there, Grant Morrison-esque stuff – but it was the least interesting book in the Killology when it should’ve been the most.

The Deadpool of the Killology turns out to be an evil Deadpool, not the Marvel 616 Deadpool from the current Marvel NOW!/Posehn & Duggan run, which makes sense given this series is so out there, it couldn’t possibly make any sense alongside the other Marvel NOW! titles. 616 Deadpool (and if you don’t know, 616 is the “normal” Marvel Universe) rallies the Deadpool Corps – multiple versions of Deadpool from alternate realities – to take on evil Deadpool and his evil Deadpool army.

It’s fun seeing all the different permutations of Deadpool – the Deadpool X-Men, Dogpool, Pandapool, Galactapool, Deadpool the Duck, and, maybe the greatest of them all, Beard o’Bees Deadpool – but that’s really all this mini-series has to offer. That and the endless violence as the various Deadpools kill each other in massively gory ways. For all its potential the series just becomes a bloodbath with DKD being your basic good guys vs bad guys story arc albeit with a lot more blood, and it also doesn’t really end either.

I was half expecting the series to be Deadpool killing himself, then getting sucked into our dimension, and choosing the most satisfying way of death like blowing up Marvel’s offices with him inside or something or somehow killing the readers of this book. But no, it’s just multiple (kinda funny) Deadpools killing one another until one’s left standing. Deadpool Kills Deadpool is a disappointing end to an entertaining mini-series. Cullen Bunn returns in the New Year with another Deadpool mini called Night of the Living Deadpool, so hopefully that’ll be better.